My favorite place in all of New York City is a spot I previously didn't tell people about because I wanted to keep it for myself.

I fell in love with this space from my very first visit.

With its floor-to-ceiling windows and walls covered in books and portraits of

authors like Tony Morrison. The place I'm talking about is called the Center for

Fiction and it's a literary nonprofit in Brooklyn.

I've attended authors panels in their community space.

I've shared wine and pastries in their cafe with friends. I've purchased books from the center's

indie bookstore. I even paid to be a member of the Center for Fiction's Lending Library, which happens

to be one of the oldest private library collections in the US.

Because it's the only place in New York where the minute I walk in,

all the tension that builds in my body over time from living on an island with millions of other humans

instantly leaves me.

The Center for Fiction is where I go to read and buy books.

And like most places in New York right now, it's closed.

I think the importance of a bookstore is that it's a community space

and so one of the biggest things we're doing right now is just

trying to figure out how to be a community space when we can't physically gather in our beautiful

glass box of books.

Riley Renhach works at the Center for Fiction. As the bookstore

manager, she's the person who greets you at the checkout desk and asks you

questions to make sure you got exactly the kind of book you were hoping to get.

But since the center shut down, her checkout desk has moved to her home, where she now processes

...